The world slept.
Like a quilt, the darkness slid across the land, deepening oceans into ink and swallowing mountains in shadow. The warm glow of villages and cities flickered and then faded as their inhabitants said their goodnights, and a heavy, silent peace blanketed the valleys and ridges of Eire.
Alba, Holy Matron of Dawn and Destiny, had stepped off the edge of the world. Her daily flight across the skies was finished; it was time for her to rest. Like clockwork, her sisters took her place in the heavens, this time in a cosmic dual dance that illuminated the countries below with a cold and glittering light. Other, more minor cousins and descendants of the Great Light joined the ceremonious whirl across the cosmos, until any person standing on the ground gazing upwards would be nothing short of enthralled by the thousand points of light joyfully orbiting the moon and northern star.
Not, of course, that there was any such person gazing upwards. Throughout Eire, it was common knowledge - or common folklore, more like - that staring directly at Alba would burn one's eyes out of one's skull; but staring directly at her sisters, Diune and Estelle, would drive one mad with unearthly desire. And so, lest accidental eye contact with the night maidens cause a celestial lunacy resulting in a mad leap from the edges of the world, Eirans walked the earth at night with their sights affixed to the ground. And this was perhaps for the best - Diune knew that both she and Estelle preferred a more anonymous worship. They enjoyed distance from their subjects, to bestow benevolence upon them from afar, to accept their offerings and answer their prayers without any familiarity. It was an unspoken rule, a universal rule, that one did not glance skywards at night.
The exception to this rule had caught Diune's attention nearly a month ago, and now, as she spun through the skies hand in hand with Estelle, she pointed it out.
"Look, sister," she whispered, casting a beam of light on the figure wending its way through craggy cliffs far below. "The sleep-walker."
Estelle paused in her rotations and looked down, down, down to where Diune pointed. Her lips blazed as she spoke. "The one you told me about. Strange, that her dreams should carry her so far from her village gates."
"'Tis not even the strangest part. Watch as she climbs." And the two goddesses affixed their gazes to one human girl, even as they wheeled through the heavens, as she flung back her cloak and began to climb the nearest crag. She was inhumanly nimble, especially considering that she was guided by nothing but her dreams, and even miles above, Diune felt a pinch of unease.
The girl cleared the precipice easily. There was something feline about her movements. And when she stood, unabashedly turning her face heavenward, Diune and Estelle saw her features clearly. Her eyes, wide open despite her obvious slumber, were clouded with whirls of galaxy and supernovae. Her cheeks were flushed, lips parted in a silent expression of adulation. Of transfixion, but not of madness. She stood there, palms turned upward, figure statuesque, until the night maidens had almost reached the horizon, signaling Alba's return. Then, as Diune's fingertips grazed the edges of the world, the girl's eyes shut and she collapsed, still asleep.
Diune and Estelle exchanged glances as they slipped beyond the horizon, allowing the dawn to follow in their footsteps.
"A future acolyte, perhaps," Estelle murmured, resting her legs on the clouds that ever gathered below the edges of the world. "Or even a candidate for priestess. Something draws her to us."
"Something does, indeed," Diune returned, her mind replaying still the look of worship on the girl's face. It hadn't just been worship, though. There had been something - something else, that tainted what could have been a simple expression of adoration. It tugged at the back of her brain, teasing at a revelation that Diune couldn't seem to grab hold of. "It doesn't matter though - at least not until the solstice. We shall allow the sleep-walker to enjoy her dreams until then."
Estelle nodded in agreement, and then let out a star-shattering yawn as day broke over Eire.
And somewhere, thousands of miles inland, a girl at the top of a cliff slept on.
YOU ARE READING
Where Dawn Breaks Night
Fantasy"Women are created with divinity woven in our flesh." It's the chance every girl has to take - pass the Trials, or die trying. Serve one of the three Divine Femininities, or live life in squalor and suffering. For Quill, a no-name street urchin with...
